‘Rising Storm’ Impressions and Gameplay Video

Tripwire Interactive’s Red Orchestra series is not for the Call of Duty crowd. While a lot of multiplayer shooters are about close quarters skirmishes, Red Orchestra puts tactics and strategy first.

Rising Storm is a standalone expansion for Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad – set in the Pacific theater of World War 2 – but it’s also a total conversion modification. Tripwire essentially took the foundation that was Red Orchestra 2, and built a relatively new game on top of it.

In the video featured above, Andrew Dyce and myself take Rising Storm for a spin inorder to see what the expansion has to offer fans and newcomers. While it’s a bit of a struggle to jump into Rising Storm without having played any of Tripwire Interactive‘s other Red Orchestra games, it’s easy to see the franchise’s appeal.

A multiplayer-only shooter that is about patience and teamwork doesn’t lend itself well to a short gameplay video, but hopefully you get the idea. Having a limited selection of certain roles (sniper, mortar, etc.) helps keep things fair, but also encourages players to stick together. Rushing out into the heat of battle — a tactic I employed in the hopes of recording some exciting firefights — just isn’t viable. There’s also vehicles in the game, but we never encountered one while playing online.

Furthermore, Rising Storm doesn’t have the flashy visuals of a Battlefield 3, but it’s certainly not an ugly game. As Counter-Strike has proven, if a shooter is fun gamers will hardly care about graphics.

Overall, I came away from my short experience with Rising Storm impressed with the game’s potential, even if it never really clicked with me. There’s a lot to be said about a shooter that can give gamers the opportunity to approach large-scale multiplayer battles with some semblance of strategy, and Red Orchestra appears to be one of the best examples..

It may not be for everyone, but Rising Storm will certainly find a solid fan base. And watch out for those flamethrowers.

Have you had a chance to check out Rising Storm? What do you think of the game?

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